Oak
by inkytears
Summary: Prequel to "Never Coming Home Again". Sebastian and Blaine spend time under an old oak tree.


"Blaine," Sebastian began, tilting his head to the side in a strange mix of awe and confusion, "You _do_ know what happens at the end of the book, don't you?"

Blaine leapt from the grass, scrambling to his feet as he pointed what was supposed to be a manecing finger in Sebastian's direction, and in turn, the direction of Oscar Wilde's only novel.

"No!" He practically cried, "And don't tell me, alright? I want it to be a surprise."

With that, the shorter of the two boys fell back to the ground with a muted thump, wincing as his bum connected with the hard soil.

"I like listening to you read anyways," Blaine murmured as he idly tugged at a spare blade of grass once he'd settled into a comfortable position. "You've got a nice voice."

"Oh yeah?" Sebastian asked, fluttering his eyelashes as he leaned into Blaine and knocked their shoulders together playfully. "Tell me _more_, Mr. Anderson."

Blaine grimaced, leaning away from Sebastian with minor disbelief painting his features. "Don't tell me you've got a teacher kink…" he began.

But Sebastian, surprising him as he usually did, turned to Blaine at an agonizingly slow pace before quite literally tackling the other boy to the ground, bodies tangling as wind was knocked from both their chests. Somehow, he managing to maneuver their bodies so that Blaine landed on top while his own spine knocked painfully against a tree root.

They both fell with an "oof", taking a moment to recover from the surprise as the proximity of their faces caused them to stare into each other's eyes, and breathe onto each other's lips.

"Please," Sebastian finally murmured once he'd caught his breath and the dull throbbing in his pain in his back had subsided. He grinning up at Blaine once again in one of those rare expressions of total, unadulterated joy that lit his eyes like the stars. "Grey hair isn't really my thing. Although, Mr. Wright _is _looking particularly robust this year," he said, referring to one of Dalton's more vertically challenged and horizontally inclined teachers.

Blaine giggled under his breath, the warm summer air causing his cheeks to turn a charming red as the sound of his laughter—strangely musical to Sebastian's ears—blended in with the sounds of crickets and blue jays and the rush of both boys' heartbeats. The sizzling in the air caused the tempo to speed ahead like a wildfire.

Eventually the silence became heavy rather than comfortable as Blaine gently brushed Sebastian's wind-blown bangs from his forehead.

Swallowing thickly at the contact, Sebastian locked his green eyes with Blaine's of hazel and blinked, falling once again into that comfortable air of shared _existence_ that he always found with his friend.

"Now, short guys with an incredible amount of talent, who've got this hilarious curly hair, even if it's under a criminal amount of gel a good bit of the time." Sebastian began out of the blue, "Guys with hearts bigger than their chests and a weird amount of tolerance for arrogant, condescending, pretentious douchebags…" He gave a little wink and pursed his lips to keep from smiling too wide, squinting against the sun. "Now _that_, I might find kind of sexy."

Blaine became increasingly redder as Sebastian spoke, his tan skin turning increasingly more lobster-esque by the moment. Eventually, with nothing left to say other than the Sebastian related thoughts that had been plaguing Blaine's mind for months, he took hold of what he thought to be a rather brilliant deflection, grabbing their forgotten book from the grass and brushing an ant off the cover with his thumb.

"You're exactly like Dorian," he said, sitting up.

Sebastian followed suit, propping himself up on his elbows as he rolled his eyes and snatched the book from Blaine's hands.

"He dies," Sebastian said off-handedly as he mindlessly flipped through the pages. "Dorian. Doesn't make much sense, though. I mean, he stabs the painting, then all of a sudden he's this pathetic, shriveled old thing on the attic floor, which just… it just doesn't _fit_. The guy's been running around London for God knows how long, _never _aging, and no one questions it—which, for the record, is completely implausible to begin with. But then—and keep in mind, nothing's happened to him so far—all of a sudden when he stabs a sheet of canvas, the universe is like 'Oops! Sorry, buddy. Looks like your luck's run out.' So Blaine, if you're saying you want me to di—"

"I love you."

Sebastian's neck snapped up from the tiny book full of tiny pages full of tiny print full of tiny letters so fast he thought that it might well break. Doubtful that he'd heard correctly, he placed the story careful back on the ground and asked, "Sorry. What?"

"You heard me," Blaine said, his face locked in a grin that overtook each of his features. "I love you. You're totally self-centered for ruining the book two chapters in, but I'm pretty sure I love you anyway."

Sebastian just sat there, slack-jawed and wide-eyed as he stared at Blaine with an expression that was blank in every sense of the word. Not that it was difficult to read, but more as though his mind had short circuited somewhere between _I_ and _you_.

The wind whipped on and the sun continued to drag it's fingers across the Earth, but for the two boys sitting beneath an oak tree on a pleasant Summer's day, time seemed to come to a stand-still. The thing about time, though, is that it's got the potential to be incredibly freeing and horribly stifling at the same time. In this instance, it was definitely leaning towards the latter.

"…Oh." Blaine finally spoke, clearing his throat as well as the silence. "I—sorry. I didn't realize you… I thought… never mind." He shook his head, staring down at his shoes. "Forget I said anything, okay? Just—"

Stopped in much the same way that Sebastian had been mere seconds before, Blaine's words were cut short by a direct form of endearment from his friend, only this time, it was a kiss. Embarrassingly enough, Blaine nearly choked, eyes flying open as Sebastian practically fell into him and gently cupped his jaw with a surprisingly soft and practiced hand, then closed the gap between their mouths with even _softer _lips.

They tasted like vanilla, and the wind felt like freedom.

"Is than an 'I love you too' look or a 'pity kiss' look?" Blaine asked as he drew away. "I'm sort of rooting for the first one here."

"Shut up," Sebastian murmured, and they kissed under the oak tree until the sun finally closed its eyes.


End file.
